A forced hand: Court orders reopening of car lots, bus stands

Former PHC CJ had taken suo motu notice over city’s traffic issues.

PESHAWAR: Following a recent Supreme Court order barring high courts from hearing suo motu cases, the Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday ordered all car and bus stands be reopened. These had been shut down after the former PHC chief justice took notice of the increasing number of parking lots causing traffic problems in the city.

While hearing the petition of Farooq though his counsel Muhammad Isa Khan, Chief Justice (CJ) Mian Fasihul Mulk and Justice Musarrat Hilali were informed about former CJ Dost Muhammad Khan’s notice on the growing number of illegal bus stands in Peshawar.

However, the bench learnt, traffic police officials had sealed a number of such lots but they were not illegal. In fact, these lots had been given to contractors by the government after following due procedure.

Isa argued after a recent Supreme Court order barring high courts from hearing suo motu cases, the PHC has no authority to proceed with the case. All car parking and bus stands closed before should be reopened, he contended.

The division bench then ordered the same.

On September 25, a division bench of former CJ Dost Muhammad Khan and Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan issued directives to the government to remove all hurdles in the smooth flow of traffic in the city.

The PHC had ordered the government to immediately close all illegal bus stands in the city for causing serious problems in the smooth flow of traffic. It also directed the government to constitute a taskforce, including representatives of the provincial transport authority, commissioner’s office, traffic police and local government, to ban all rusty vehicles from the roads.

The court also ordered the district government to issue notices to all those plazas without parking areas and then fine and seal them if they did not make adjustments.

The case of a dubious tender

A division bench of Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan stopped the provincial government from issuing a work order for the construction of three roads in the Jalozai Housing Scheme.

Trang Construction Company filed a petition in the court about a tender advertised by the provincial government in the newspaper on January 30. The petition added after the company received the tender, another rate for the construction of the road was given which was neither mentioned in the advertisement nor on the website. Later, the contract was allegedly given to someone else based on ‘favouritism’.

After hearing preliminary arguments, the court issued a stay order and stopped the provincial government from issuing the work order for the roads’ construction.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 14^th, 2014.